


though i sang in my chains like the sea

by auxanges



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, F/M, Grimdark, Humanstuck, Land of Wrath and Angels, M/M, Multi, kind of anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2018-12-06 04:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges
Summary: You had made peace with the fact that your curiosity would get you into trouble long ago: you just hadn’t. Quite. Anticipated this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [endeofblood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeofblood/gifts).



> prompt:  
> "What would you say if I said a vengeful boy on a path of nihilism was taken under the wings of fearsome angels, and learned to destroy hope with their light?  
> What would you say if I said a reserved girl enamored by what dwelt in shadow was selected by the horrorterrors for service, and did their bidding at every step while convinced of her own autonomy?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (TW: Body horror? emetophobia in the picture)  
> So, humanstuckish, no game, and it'd be really really cool to see something based on this tumblr post but super extra bonus points (+ my eternal love) if the angels crop up somewhere  
> URL: http://sermna.tumblr.com/post/46965361435/morningthief-sermna-rose-who-lives-on-the"

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are in what you would consider, in your amateur opinion, to be a bit of a predicament.

The lights in your bathroom are flickering. This tends to happen, on nights when you sink to your knees over the lip of the tub. It’s one of those with feet. The tile is chipped, stained; the cold bite of it pricks at your skin. Details, to claw your way back to reality.

Here, then, is your predicament. This _is_ your reality—doubled over and spilling cold contents of the sea down your drain.

You’re too far inland for it to be what it looks like: you did the math, the closest shoreline is a two-and-a-half hour drive away. You did lots of math, after the first time. All the same, though—what else could it possibly be? The salt burns your cheeks and gums. It’s clear, tonight; some nights, it runs like ink, staining the walls of the tub with black-blue rings.

Somehow, you don’t think your agreement with your landlord mentioned this in damages.

When you think it’s over, you reach for the taps (faded labels, the cold one squeaks when you turn it, details and details and details) and watch it circle the drain. You feel hollowed out. You do not feel clean.

You cup your hands under the stream and rinse your face, towel off, and sleep for four hours. Then you wake, drenched in sweat, something horrible and unearthly clogging your throat, and do it over again.

The diary on your nightstand says day thirty-eight. It feels like an eternity; it feels like time does not belong to you anymore.

*

TT: I have a hypothetical question.

They say curiosity killed the cat. Actually, a 2003 Honda Accord killed your cat, when you were a kid. It took you another ten years to learn that the saying ends with “satisfaction brought it back.”

In following this, it had seemed a reasonable enough idea, at the time. You'd made peace with the fact that your curiosity would get you into trouble long ago: you just hadn’t. Quite. Anticipated this.

TG: hate to be the bearer of bad news lil sis but most of your questions are hypothetical

You’ve always had a certain knack for finding the necessary tools for this sating of your curiosity, this metaphorical cat-killing. Convenient, even, because acquiring centuries-old grimoires banned in a dozen different countries is somehow easier than cleaning feline remains off your carpet. Landlords and their ~priorities~.

TT: Fair.

TT: So suppose, hypothetically, that you were to somehow gain possession of a book claiming to teach the reader the ways of the old gods.

The caveat? You hadn’t been able to read it. The symbols had swam in front of your eyes in an ancient calligraphy. You’d copied them out by hand and emailed them to a friend of yours in the linguistics department. He’d called you on the phone to meet, rather than reply to it, which had sparked your interest sky-high.

“None of these show up in Proto-European records, let alone any runic systems of the past two millennia. Rose, where did you _find_ this?”

“I’ve got my sources.” Kesten had looked at you like were an extra in a shitty spy movie, and you had pressed onward. “What’s more important is what it means. Is it phonetic? Can I read it if I know the sounds?”

He’d frowned at you over his hot chocolate, hunched over the tiny cup in the too-small chair of the local cafe. You, barely reaching his chest with the book on the table between the pair of you, had felt like a giant.

“—I mean.” His eyes had kept flicking to the book, like it would open its yellowed pages into some sort of monstrous thing and bite him square on the nose. “I mean, yes, I can make you a chart with the corresponding IPA, but—”

“Perfect.” You’d been giddy. Childish. Awfully so. “I’ll buy you lunch for a month.”

“Three months.” His scarf was twisted around his fingers; he’d been running his thumb and forefinger over the length since you’d sat down and pulled out the grimoire.

“Arrayl—”

“Three months,” Kesten had said, leaning forward until the chair creaked. “The glyphs used here—Rose, these were not used for anything good. Dark workings, they were scribbled out of history for a reason.”

You had smiled at him over your cup. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

TT: And then suppose you were to research the traditions of the old gods, and all the information was lost in translation, so you took it upon yourself to read them.

TT: You know. Hypothetically.

Words formed easily on your tongue—or what you assumed to be words, these jumbles of sounds so alien to you. Kesten clarified the phonemes you didn’t know (you knitted him a thank-you gift, watched his hands acquaint themselves with it under the table) and you slowly worked your way through the pages.

But that’s all they were. Words. Scribbles in fading lines, blotched and stained like the book had been dropped in a puddle. The wiser thing, probably, would have been to stop. Quit while you were ahead. Save your cat before it actually got to the death-by-inquisitive-mind part.

You have never been so bold as to claim yourself wise, though.

TT: Now suppose—again, Roxy, this is purely hypothetical—that something you read, without your knowledge, triggered what you suspect to be a rift between universes, to release dark magic with you as an unknowing conduit?

You’ve come to call it Day One. A third of the way into the grimoire, your confidence in your grasp on the ancient symbols was reasonable. You flew through stanzas, tracing an index over the characters as you went.

When the lights in your room blinked in some bastardized Morse code, you paid it no heed; your apartment’s by no means a luxurious one, and electricity on the fritz doesn’t really constitute a red flag for you.

The red flag came instead as a blinding flash, a roaring in your ears like a broken levee. It came as something dark and unnamed in every damp shadow of your room, just out of your field of vision; it came in tendrils, insubstantial, to wrap around your ankles, your wrists, your ribs—your throat—

And then it receded just as quickly, a blip, a split second short enough that you could have imagined it.

Day Two, you rolled up your sleeves to find pockmarks along your forearms, looped around your calves: tiny rings, evenly spaced. You feel, on Day Two, like a prey animal.

Day Three, you put the grimoire on the highest shelf you could reach, balanced on a chair.

TT: If this were to happen, hypothetically, how would you go about dealing with maybe accidentally selling yourself as an emissary to a nightmarish supernatural force unknown to humankind?

TG: you WHAT

*

You do not dream. Or, more specifically, your dreams are not your own. Your nights are long, devoid of any light; you dream of depths, and an insatiable hunger. When you wake, you’re out of bed, on the floor of your room, curled up on the kitchen counter, in the bathroom with the sink overflowing.

All of this is logged in your diary, with varying degrees of legibility.

Some nights, your voice wakes you, and it’s not yours, either. Two-thirty sees you chanting at your ceiling in words you can’t begin to understand. You taste salt in the back of your throat. Your downstairs neighbour bangs on your floor with a broom, as if you had a choice. Your arms are at your sides like cinderblocks.

Day brings you little reprieve. You drag yourself out of the apartment, and the Sun sears your skin, invisible. You swap out t-shirts for long sleeves and cover your eyes à la Southern cousins of yours: it makes your blood boil, run frozen, as you search for compromise.

It follows you, this—this _fear_ , as you make your way through the motions, heavy black things on your shoulders like a weighted cloak. When you pass a window, a mirror, there is nothing there. You duck into alleyways and brace against brickwork, wrestling with something you can’t name inside you.

You’re impure, you think. And yet whatever’s laid hands(?) on you has deemed you worthy. You are a paradox you cannot begin to unravel.

Roxy checks in on you, occasionally. There isn’t much she can do in the middle of a study abroad, let alone to help you determine what ancient eldritch entity has chosen you.

(Chosen you for _what_ remains a mystery.)

And while you appreciate the company of your sister, however impersonal it may be, you can’t help but feel a little alone in all this.

The thought comes calling, unbidden, one night on the couch watching the dead pixels in the corner of your TV. You’re _not_ alone, are you? Not in a true sense of the word. Somewhere beyond the furthest edges of your reach, you are being watched over.

Somehow, this makes it easier to accept the cards you’ve been dealt. Or rather, you suppose, the cards you have dealt yourself.

Technicalities.

*

The pages of your diary fill with something akin to tired curiosity. Fatigue replaces concern until the force in you becomes a driving one, propelling your feet forward, bringing you to your knees and raising you up again thereafter.

It swells in you like it follows a lunar cycle; you yourself are in some kind of permanent eclipse, in a foreign darkness with your arms outstretched in front of you. Your reflection in the mirror spits out jumbles of sound, even after you clap your hands over your mouth.

Who are you?

What is happening to you?

You stock up on groceries, things you can throw together with minimal effort from your waterlogged limbs, and let your eyes shut when you can.

Is anyone out there?

*

It’s cloudy outside, an ash-grey August sky with humidity that stirs the creature in you, around you, above and beneath you. You’re less a cornered prey animal and more a sacrifice. (Day Twelve’s entry.)

You throw Vivaldi on your playlist and crank up angry seventeenth-century violin to drown out the roar between your ears. There’s a feeling of being...adrift. The gradual comfort you’ve accidentally tied to you is restless, and it churns in you, slowly filling your lungs. You wrap your arms around your middle and curl up on your carpet.

When someone knocks on your door, you are sorely tempted to ignore it. After the first ten seconds of constant, metronomic rapping, though, it becomes clear wallowing in this sick dread at who-knows-what is simply not happening today.

You pick yourself up, open the door, and the thing living in you shrieks as your apartment is flooded with something blinding, a flare of light, white and horrible and

holy.

The hand bracing against the doorframe is gripping the plaster hard enough for it to crack.

And then the light recedes, and you blink away tears that stain your cheeks a strange colour—only then do you realize you’re crying.

The messenger of the end days wipes his glasses on his shirt and says, “Rose Lalonde, apartment four? Look, this is as polite as I’ll get. I respect you got personal problems or whatever, but could you maybe use your inside voice when crisis comes callin at the crack a dawn?”

*

The smell of coffee wakes you, and the quick realization that you didn’t brew it makes  you sit up. You’re on your couch: the throw’s been tugged over your legs. The stereo is off, Vivaldi resting in peace once more.

“You’re awake.”

Even as you turn towards the voice, you recognize it. The boy from your doorway’s sitting cross-legged on your counter—he’s tall, you’re not entirely sure he needs the height boost—and flipping absently through tabs on his phone.

“I am.” You kick your feet over the side of the couch, dragging the throw with you. “I didn’t realize I’d passed out.”

“An I didn’t realize I was that ugly,” the boy replies, locking his phone and absently tossing it over his shoulder. It lands on a folded pile of dish towels. “I found your French press, by the way.”

“Is that your way of belatedly asking to borrow it?”

He pretends to think about it for a moment. “Sure.” He pushes off the counter to grab mugs. You are utterly baffled at this stranger milling about in your kitchen like he owns the place. “Take anythin in it?”

“I drink it black.”

He whistles. “Hardass.”

You hug your knees to your chest, rubbing your temples. “Remind me again where I know you from?”

“Depends how much you been leavin your apartment.” He taps one knuckle on the open cupboard door. Some dim corner of you—the one where you log all your details—recognizes the cadence as the one against your floor.

“You’re my downstairs neighbour.”

“I usually go by Eridan.” He holds out a steaming mug, and you uncurl your limbs to accept it.

“Pleasure.” You blow on the surface of the drink.

Eridan quirks an eyebrow. “You don’t gotta lie on my account.”

The coffee goes down easily, smooth and dark, warm spices, waking you up more fully. He pushes a chair over with one foot and swings his leg over the seat, elbows against the backrest.

Eridan asks, “So you gonna tell me how long you been communin with the old gods like some suicidal moron?”

“I.” You blink. “I. How—”

“C’mon. All the signs are there. I seen the claims on you. My ceiling is seriously fuckin thin to boot.” He takes a sip from his mug, glances at it, then knocks back half its contents. “You’re playin with things bigger than yourself, Lalonde.”

You lean back into the pillows. “I didn’t know,” is all you can think to say in your defence.

“Course you didn’t.” Eridan doesn’t sound patronizing so much as resigned: you feel analyzed, like he’s stripped you to your bones behind his glasses to see the unearthly parts of you. “No one ever does.”

“But you do,” you venture, caffeine siphoning courage into your voice. “You sound familiar with this kind of magic—”

“Oh, not magic. Divine invocation’s more accurate.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One’s bullshit an the other is a product of bullshit.” There goes the second half of his coffee. This guy is bottomless.

Right, sure. “...so you’re familiar with this _divine invocation_. Does that mean you know how to go about reversing it?”

Eridan pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You can’t...okay. No, I don’t know how to reverse it. A force that powerful choosin you ain’t in your control.”

His tone flattens, and he examines the bottom of his mug intently. You see a discoloured streak in his hair, silvery against the styled brown curls.

Another sip prompts you. “It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Somethin like that.”

You wait for elaboration, and Eridan does not give it to you. You sigh into your coffee. “So there’s nothing to be done?”

He looks back up at you: his eyes are an icy blue, and the waves in you roll like open ocean. “I didn’t say that.”

“There’s hope but no control and you believe in eldritch gods but not magic. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a little contradictory?”

“It’s come up once or twice.” Eridan stands, rinsing his mug with a swirl of his wrist and picking up his phone to toss at you with his free hand. “Put your number in.”

“Goodness, how forward.”

“Real cute. I’m here offerin aid outta the goodness a my heart, kid.”

You get the feeling he’s mostly calling you that on account of his extra foot over you. “It’s appreciated,” you say sincerely.

Eridan shrugs, closing the gap to brace a hand on your shoulder. It’s suprisingly cool. “Anythin to get some sleep in this shithole. I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Let me guess. You know a guy?”

“Don’t be facetious. I know a guy who knows a guy.” For a moment, you think you see him almost smile. “Be seein you, Rose Lalonde.”

Shadows cross his back when he lets himself out. You finish your coffee in silence.

It is Day Forty-One. Two days later, a text from Eridan Ampora, tagged in your phone with ungodly typing (my phone wwent through the wwash an fucked up my keyboard), gives you the name of an upscale coffee joint to meet. You think of sunlight; you think of the Light, what you’d seen in your apartment, you think of the burning tear tracks on your cheeks.

You grab shoes and a pack and lock the door behind you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since i read this prompt my life has not known peace. snakes have started manifesting in my house physically
> 
> thank u to scy for lettin me use their beautiful son for like 4 lines in this chapter


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wait.” Rose shakes out her hair. “I didn’t think angels made those kinds of deals.”
> 
> “C’mon, Lalonde. What are angels but demons in penthouse apartments?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in true homestuck fashion all my fics just update at d20-generated month intervals now.  
> in this house we are sollux stans first and people second

Your name is Eridan Ampora and you’ve been chosen. 

This is not arrogance on your part, although you’ve been called so before. It’s more a statement of fact. Your name is Eridan, the sky is blue, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, and when you were six angels blasted their way into your house and reignited a claim to your blood generations deep. 

Some of these facts, you learned later than others, on account of life is a vicious bitch. 

At the ripe old age of supposed-to-not-be-giving-a-shit, the colour is blown from you and your brother’s hair, your eyes, flooded with curses rebranded as lessons neither of you recall asking for. Do the angels care? Absolutely, the fuck not. 

Two years later, you throw a tantrum on the playground, over some kiddie violation of the kiddie rules of your kiddie pretend game. It remains a staff-wide mystery, how you threw your voice and hit the approximate decibel count of a revving chainsaw. Your father paid for the spider cracks in the window — and the student teacher’s hearing aids — and dragged the three of you halfway across the country.

* * *

 

“It’s easier,” says Cronus, when you are ten and sitting criss-cross on a dining room chair with a towel over your shoulders, “it’s easier if you let them in. No sense in fightin fate.”

He’s just turned sixteen, shooting up overnight into a mess of cocky shadow. In one gloved hand, he’s got a brush, a bottle of dye in the other. No colour sticks: you’ve tried your natural brown, blond, red—panicked, you snuck out to buy blue—this purple brand holds out a little longer, and you sit as still as you can while he works. 

(He never bothered with his, the whole of his hair veering white overnight like the French queen in your history books.)

You chew on your answer before replying. “I didn’t pick it, though. What if I don’t want my fate?” It’s aimed at your brother’s chest.

He sets down the bottle and traps a piece of your bangs between his fingers. “That’s none of fate’s business. Sorry, kiddo.”

“No, you’re not,” you accuse, narrowing your eyes. 

“No, I’m not,” Cronus admits. “I learned my place on this sorry rock, Dan. It ain’t that bad. Like a holy flu shot.”

You hate flu shots. 

The dye job is over in twenty minutes of hummed classic rock and pins and needles in your feet. When you look yourself in the mirror after it’s done, you can’t help but feel like more eyes are watching you.

* * *

 

Thirteen years and two apartments after the dead-end conversation with your brother, you wake up with light in your eyes. Bleary, you roll over to check your phone: 4:15 in the morning. 

Excellent. 

You fumble around your room for pants. Night vision is typically no problem for you, but halos are still dancing in front of you. They’re probably on backwards, but who gives a shit? Not you. 

And probably not Rose Lalonde. 

It’s been occupying all your unoccupied brain cells since you accidentally blew out half the lightbulbs in her hallway. The notion that anyone would voluntarily offer themselves up to some extradimensional superbeing for shits and giggles baffles you. You’d thought you’d lost the ability to be baffled a long time ago. 

The world is full of surprises, you guess. 

You throw on the lightest button-down you own and struggle with your hair before grabbing your shit. You’re late for an appointment.

*

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” says Rose, not breaking her staring contest with her mug, “but when you named this as a meeting place, I—”

“You didn’t think I worked here.” The espresso machine punctuates your wager with a hiss. You’ve had a part-time gig at Möbius Drip since first year: the coffee goes down easy, the discount doesn’t hurt, and you can prep your lesson plans with your preferred brand of white noise. “I’m off the clock in five. Try not to fall asleep waitin for me.”

She looks, if possible, more harried than yesterday—her eyes are pinpricks in her skull. You think of Cronus, who works graveyard shifts and trolls for events just to avoid falling asleep; you think of yourself, averaging five hours a night before you wake spitting feathers from your mouth. 

You prep yourself a pour-over of the darkest roast you have and toss your apron over the counter. Rose has barely moved by the time you’re done punching out. “Look, kid, if you’re not feelin it I can take you home—”

“No,” she insists, with enough volume to surprise the two of you—barring her little 4 a.m. concerts, she’s relatively soft-spoken. “No, thank you, I’ve made up my mind to hear you out.”

It’s as good a start as any. 

You feed the pour-over, leaning at an angle against the bar to glance at Rose. “So how long?”

She frowns. “I thought—”

“Look, Lalonde, if I’m gonna help you, I need _you_ to help _me_. How long ago did you breach?”

Rose takes a slow sip from her mug before answering. “About a month and a half ago.”

“ _A month an—_ ” Your abrupt look up splashes boiling water on the back of your hand; you shake it out to blur the violet fissures that web just under the skin. “You’ve held up communication this long and you haven’t fuckin cracked? I’m almost impressed.”

Her frown deepens. You watch her pretend she didn’t notice you scald yourself. Quite the symbiosis the two of you are developing. “If this is your approach to constructive criticism, I’m compelled to tell you it kind of sucks.” 

“I’m wounded,” you reply, in a tone that implies you’re far from the fact. This girl, while still careless in your book (a book which also includes one Eridan Ampora), is quickly growing on you. 

Rose shifts in her chair, restless. “Am I going to, then? Crack?”

You shake your head, setting down the empty carafe. “Not if we can help you. I’ve seen this shit before, and if you ain’t seen the point of no return by now I’m inclined to hold out hope for you.”

“How reassuring.”

“See? You’re a ray a sunshine already.” You swap out your full mug for a second one, dumping a shot of milk and watching it curl around itself like a little dairy hurricane. 

Rose lowers her drink, but does not look at you directly. A side effect of your Claim—it’s almost comforting to know it’s because you occasionally flare like a corona and not because you’re hideous or unloveable (though the years prior to this deduction gave you one hell of an existential crisis). Her own situation probably doesn’t make her too keen on daylight hours, either. 

You’re about to press on as gently as you’re able when she says, “I looked in the grimoire again. About eight days ago, maybe ten. To see if there was a reversal.”

“And?”

“And I woke up with my head completely submerged in the laundry room sink, so either the book or this, ah, guest, didn’t take warmly to my attempt.”

You clench your teeth sympathetically, unsurprised though you are. Rose is pretty matter-of-fact about nearly drowning; you’re more than tempted to check her lung capacity in the university’s lab. “Well,” you say slowly, “I think it goes without sayin that not doin that again is the way to go.”

“Cheers,” Rose mumbles into her cup. 

It also goes without saying that she’s taking this setback awfully well. When celestial bodies had pulled at your spine until bony, naked wings had burst their way free on your sixteenth birthday, the resulting flipping of your shit had left claw marks on your walls and inexplicable (yet equally embarrassing) damage to your ceiling. You’d called Cronus, babbling nonsense that he’d deciphered with ease, and within the hour he was cleaning the blood from your fingernails and shining a light in your eyes. Concussion, you’d thought—you still think. You don’t remember much else. 

_Peace, Dan._

“Eridan?”

You give a little start, rubbing your eyes behind your glasses. “God. Sorry.”

Rose waves off your apology, understanding nothing and everything all at once. “I asked who we’re meeting here.”

“Whose toes do I have to lick to get an americano around here?”

You smirk. “That who.”

Karkat Vantas is five feet and one extra inch of terror: you roomed with him for two years before he shacked up with a gangly pile of limbs moonlighting as a disk jockey. He’s flying solo today, and you whistle to get his attention. “On the house,” you greet him, raising the second steaming mug in the air. 

“Oh, sweet caffeinated mother,” he moans, folding around the mug like it’s got the answers to life itself. “I sure as shit hope it’s on the house, Ampora, otherwise I wouldn’t be here letting you drag me once more into the festering asshole of supernatural tomfuckery because some toolbag decided it might be a pleasant little weekend activity to—wait, Rose?”

She looks up and veers so white you’re bracing to catch her if she topples off her chair. “Karkat?” 

You have to ask. “How…”

“Dave’s cousin,” they explain in a staggered chorus. Rose clears her throat. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

“I’m loud, not a blabbermouth.” Karkat takes a long, long swig of coffee. 

She looks relieved; you feel a twinge of pity, and wash it down with dark roast. “Eridan said you know someone who might be informed on the subject.”

“Somehow, this is my lot in life, yes. Knowing freaks with too much time on their hands, or blood bonds to some del Toro wet dream, or both. If Dave starts speaking in tongues next time we—”

“Yeah, Kar, you’re a real martyr to the cause,” you interrupt, offering Karkat the packets of sugar he forgot in his haste to find stimulant nirvana. 

He takes his time stirring them in, until your brew is more caramel than coffee. Then, he pulls out one of his boyfriend’s fuck-ugly business cards and writes an address on the back in block letters. “The guy you’re looking for is Sollux Captor. He knows you’re coming, and he’s not happy about it.”

* * *

 

After two refills of Karkat’s mug and all the awkward small talk you can stomach, you take Rose back to the apartment. She’s quiet in your car, the passenger fan cranked; you can see sweat or seawater plastering her bangs to her temples. 

“Have you met him before?” she asks, turning down your radio.

“Who, Kar? Yeah, we go way back—”

“Not him. Sollux Captor.”

You drum your fingers on the steering wheel. “No,” you say finally. “But you gotta know. Karkat keeps little company. If this guy comes Vantas recommended, it’s for a reason.”

It’s tricky to tell if that helped her or not, but she settles back in her seat and naps on and off the rest of the way home. 

* * *

 

"You’re sure you’ll be up for goin tomorrow?” you ask, when Rose is fumbling for her keys. There are dried stains, like discoloured puddles, around the cracks in her doorway. 

Rose looks you square in the eye for the first time all day. “Twenty-four hours ago, I thought I was alone in this,” she says, pushing the door open with her hip. The blinds are drawn, the press cleaned but still on the counter. You feel ill at ease, like something else is in the apartment with you. “Perhaps it’s a little early to find some solace, but…”

“Nah, kid. I get you.”

And you do. You get Rose Lalonde on such a molecular level that you can almost feel your insides rearranging furniture. Your teenage years and first stretch of college had been saturated with unanswered questions; Cronus split his time between the bike shop and festivals up the coast all the way to Old Montreal, pretending the rust in your voices was from anything other than prophecy you didn’t deserve to repeat. 

You roll out your neck, your shoulders. “So I’ll pick you up at nine? Seems a reasonable hour to go bug someone about deep-sea old gods.” 

Rose studies you. It’s not the first time someone has—teachers, doctors, classmates—but she holds your gaze long after you expect her to look away. You almost wonder if she’s fallen asleep with her eyes open. “You’re welcome to stay over.”

“What? You sure?”

“The couch really is comfortable.” She offers a little quirk of her lip, like you’re sharing a joke. 

The sincerity in your voice could pry open your bones. “Thanks.”

After a feast of toaster waffles and pink lemonade you’re sprawled on the couch, the scratching of Rose’s fountain pen in a notebook she’s got tucked in her lap lulls you to sleep while the Sun is still up. 

(It’s not a pleasant time, dreaming. Everything is too hot, like someone’s replaced your marrow with oil and sent you stumbling into a brazier. Your head is ringing with something incomprehensible. 

_Peace, Dan_.)

* * *

 

Something’s burning. The smell wakes you slowly, tendrils of sleep offering the suggestion that your dumbfuck roommate accidentally overcooked some bacon. Your first truly sober thought of the morning reminds you that in your new pal’s apartment, the only dumbfuck roommate is you. 

You move to sit up, and feel an awful, familiar pull, like someone’s plucked your—

“Oh, shit.”

Imprints of your shoulders and upper back are seared into the couch cushions, spreading into a smoking, crooked wingspan. “Shit, dammit, shit—”

The fire alarm. You scramble to open windows, wrestling with the patio door, stretching your curse word vocabulary as far as it will go. 

“Eridan?”

“Nothin,” you reply, raising your hands high in the air, the very picture of a guilty vessel. “I mean. Good morning. Did I wake you?”

Rose is staring at the couch. “I’m going to go on a limb here and say you don’t smoke.”

Your brother does that enough for the both of you. You step back from the door, shaking your head. “I can pay for the couch—”

“Oh, my God.”

Her stare has turned to you, and it’s about now that you remember you sleep shirtless in summer’s unforgiving heat. 

The dappled brands of wings across your back had never faded: when you turned eighteen and they continued to grow, you got fed up and had them inked over, from the knob of your spine to the bottom of your ribs to the midpoint of your upper arms. Sigils, searing themselves into your vision until your scribbled them in blind panic, are neatly tattooed along your sides. When you run out of real estate, you’re not sure what you’ll do—this is the best way you’ve found to quiet them. 

You run a hand through your hair and sigh. “Can I have coffee before I explain?”

To your relief, Rose relaxes a little more, composed in her apparent usual state, and orders you to put on the kettle. 

Symbiosis. 

* * *

 

Eight minutes later you’re sitting on the couch, a handspan away from the mess you made, leaning forward with a drink in your hand. Rose is perched on the armrest; her socks are bright pink, and the toes are dipped in the ash. 

“My father made a deal,” you explain after coating your throat with sufficient Guatemalan blend. “We never could figure out what it was. Nothin at work changed overnight, no lottery win. I would’ve guessed love, but my Da never brought anyone home. Cronus guessed vengeance.”

Rose raises an expectant eyebrow. 

“Jury’s still out.”

"What did he give in return, then? You?”

Your mug is a fascinating subject in your tightening grip. “They deal in oaths of the blood, the angels. Why settle for a life half-over when you can snare two more? That’s most of the way to one a those fuckin loyalty punch cards.”

“Wait.” Rose shakes out her hair. “I didn’t think angels made those kinds of deals.”

“C’mon, Lalonde. What are angels but demons in penthouse apartments?”

Her pondering gives you leave to continue. “What I said the other day, about no control. That’s been my reality for the past decade and a half. I ain’t super keen on seein it be yours.”

“Oh.” She looks…you don’t know. Surprised, maybe. “I can’t say I completely understand all that.”

“Neither do I,” you say, leaning back until your nape brushes the couch. “But sometimes it’s nice to not understand shit together, you know?”

The small smile she gives you makes you think she does.

* * *

 

The address Karkat gave you leads to a high-rise not far from the business district: a little out of your teacher’s college pocket, but popular among recent grads with big aspirations. There are entirely too many floors for your liking. 

At the door, Rose pauses. “Suppose we come to a dead end.” 

“Pretty early on to quit, kid,” you reply, raising a hand to knock. “Besides, I’d prefer anything over a dead end. My bar is hilariously low.”

Fate must hear you. 

The man who answers the door looks your age—mid-twenties, with long legs and a lean torso. His hair betrays the humidity and a few missed cuts; tinted glasses cover his flat expression. “Yeah.”

“Sollux Captor?” Rose asks, a little skeptically. 

“Last time I checked.” His sibilants catch the slightest bit between his teeth. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Rose, this is Eridan. Karkat Vantas gave us your—”

“I’m sure it’s a real neat story, save all the juicy bits for later, though.” Sollux swings the door open wider; you and Rose exchanged looks before entering. 

There are seven—no, eight monitors in the apartment—another screen has a rerun of “Deadliest Catch” paused on a particularly indignant-looking crab. The wall adjacent to the window is covered in chalkboard paint. Jumbles of symbols and numbers swim in front of your eyes. You rub your temples. 

Rose looks at it longer. “Is that APIS?”

“Uh huh.” Sollux has his head in the freezer. Colourful cans of sugary drinks are piled into a box at the foot of the sink. 

You lean over. “What, uh—”

“It’s a high-performance if controversial coding language. My sister’s been using it since alpha release.” Rose snaps her fingers. “Captor. I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t piece it together sooner.”

She turns her attention to the freezer, where Sollux has acquired a bright blue freeze pop and is dutifully cutting the edges into rounded corners. “It’s _your_ code, correct?”

“Ow, fuck,” says Sollux, when the first bite connects with his teeth. Wiping his hand on his jeans, he adds, “yeah, it’s mine.”

You have exactly zero idea what to make of this guy.

“APIS has only been on the market for—”

“Three years. Five years of dicking around with data before that, heh.” He takes another (smaller) bite of his freeze pop. “Sold it to some fancy corporation, they can do what they want with it. I answer to no bitch.” He pauses, amends. “Selective bitches.”

Rose opens her mouth again, but your penchant for stupidity is faster. “But you’re so young.”

Sollux looks at you. Maybe it’s the treat dangling from his mouth, or maybe it’s the shades, but it’s completely indecipherable. “And?” he asks, a syllable which, for reasons beyond you, brings matches to hover by your nerves. 

He waves his snack at the loveseat in the corner before plunking down in an office chair. “Park it there.”

You and Rose pile onto the seat: she is very, very cold. Maybe you’re warm, you don’t know—the accidental smoresification of her couch this morning left you a little dazed. “Got experience in this field, then? I don’t remember it bein on the electives list.”

“Maybe it should be, that way youth suffering from common-sense deficiencies don’t offer up their bodily goods for mythical consumption.” Sollux tips his head back to get some melted freeze slush. 

Rose crosses her arms. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry, is that not what you’re here for?”

The mix of hot and cold is putting you on edge. “Bold of you to offer common sense advice when you’re wearing sunglasses indoors.”

Sollux swivels again to look at you—and _really_ looks, this time, pulling off his shades to point one of their arms at you. “It’s called photosensitivity, pretty boy, if refusing to let my retinas spontaneously combust is a crime then lock me up.”

Your snark at the (almost disappointingly uncreative) nickname evaporates. What Sollux’s eyes lack in colour coordination they make up in focus: much like at Rose’s place, you feel split open and studied. 

He takes another bite of freeze pop before slipping his glasses back on. “So. Rose, right? How’d you meet your new bestest metaphysical buddy?”

“I consulted a book.” Rose seems a little more at ease after having talked to you more, but the seesaw of Sollux’s temperament seems to have caught her attention, too.

“Old school, I respect it. I’d like it more if you hadn’t done it at all.” Sollux rolls up his wrapper. “You didn’t happen to bring the book with you, did you?”

“Were we supposed to? Kar didn’t say nothin about—”

“Hey, inside voice,” Sollux hisses, which shuts you up out of sheer confusion—you make a point not to speak loudly for fear of a playground bitchfit rerun. “No, you weren’t _supposed_ to do anything. So much the better, really, I’d hate to bring unknown shit in here where my Xbox lives.”

You say, as dryly and quietly as possible, “Aren’t we unknown shit?”

“Very astute, Eridan.” Your name sounds bizarre on his tongue, like it doesn’t belong to either of you. Dread swells in you, and you mentally dampen it, annoyed. “I’m sure you’ll be on the fast track to known shit as we all begrudgingly spend some warm and fuzzy time together and see if we can’t evict Rose’s Lovecraftian parasite.”

Rose makes as if to answer, but a cough that rattles all your ribs escapes her instead. The temperature around you drops; she sucks in air like her lungs are filling with something else. “Sorry,” she croaks, making a _one-second_ waving motion. 

Sollux’s eyebrows have shot above his glasses and into his hair. “Shit, you’ve been here for all of five minutes and I already pissed it off. That’s got to be some kind of record.”

“For you or in general?” You stand again, to hunt down some water. 

“Har har.”

Rose takes the glass you find gratefully. Her skin has a greyish tinge to it, like she’s been submerged for months. A sidelong glance at Sollux doesn’t offer any insight as to whether he sees it, too. “Can you read the summons text, then?” 

“Fuck, no. Eldritch Duolingo lessons are way above my pay grade.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Aren’t you self-employed?”

“ _Seriously_ , buddy, I’m right here, I’m gonna need you to take it down to a two. Yes, data mining encrypted content on old gods is just a fun little side gig for me. I accept payment in Papa John’s coupons, if you’re taking notes.”

“I’m talkin at a perfectly acceptable—”

Rose puts a frozen hand on your arm, the other on her glass. “You know where to find more information on it?”

“Unless your fancy book wrote itself by way of new technology that hasn’t reached my shitty little ears it’s gotta have its own source.” Sollux is thin: you see the fabric of his t-shirt slide when he shrugs, the wireless headphones around his neck askew. 

You’re almost afraid to talk again, lest you give him any more fuel to taunt you with. “You reckon there’s a solution, then.”

“Every problem has a solution,” he replies easily, like Rose is asking a third-grade math problem rather than scrambling after her own autonomy. 

(A very small, very silly part of you wonders if your own problem falls under this logic, too. The dread uncurls in your gut as you try, too late, to repress the thought.)

Sollux turns in his chair to face one of his monitors. “I can have a look now, but I’ll need the book for in-depth tracking.”

“Of course.” Rose is still the colour of ash at your side, but her timbre has begun to smooth out. You’re definitely running warm. The skin of your shoulders feels raw. 

“Make yourselves comfy,” he’s saying, fiddling with one side of his headphones. “Freeze pops are in the door.”

“Do you have grape?” asks Rose.

“What am I, a savage? Of course I have grape.”

Their voices roar between your ears. You’re going to be sick in this obnoxious stranger’s apartment. You’re going to be something more humiliating than sick in this obnoxious stranger’s apartment. “I need to—”

“ _Holy_ fuck, do you or do you not comprehend the meaning of simmering down? If you want progress I’m going to need all of you to shut the hell up!”

The colour strips itself from the walls and monitors. Sollux and his apartment tip precariously sideways; Rose’s shadow crawls along the carpet. 

_ All of you.  _

You have to get out of here. 

Rose’s mouth moves, but the sound is swallowed whole. Your own voice is a vacuum, a bike stuck on its smallest, useless gear. You try for the door when you’re pulled down hard towards the wall—that yank in your spine—and one of the screens explodes, showering the three of you in broken glass. 

Your vision starbusts, and the angels drag you under. 


End file.
